


Boys Boys Boys

by OMGitsgreen



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: AKA dates but without money, Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Lou Ellen, Bar Room Brawl, Cecil is trying his best, College romance, Gen, Homophobic Language, M/M, Will is impressed, bad pop culture references, though Nico kicks that dude's butt so he gets his
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-09-25 22:09:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9848390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMGitsgreen/pseuds/OMGitsgreen
Summary: "But for now, it definitely wouldn’t help him to freak out the dude by staring. Besides, everyone knew that hot guys in leather jackets who wore Iron Maiden tee-shirts were generally as straight as boards. No use getting his hopes up." Will hits up a bar on a night out with his best friends, and inadvertently crosses paths with the badass he never knew he needed.





	1. Boys Boys Boys

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been severely lacking in inspiration because of how busy I have been. So I went back to basics: some personal experiences I’ve had at bars in NYC and around where I go to school, and a College AU set up. Could I be inspired to continue this? Heck yeah I probably could. Let me know if you like it, and I might continue. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

It had started out for Will as a relatively tame night out with his two best friends Lou Ellen and Cecil. Will barely ever had time to actually hit up bars, drink, or do things that could be considered vaguely social. But Lou Ellen had burst into his dorm room with a half-empty box of wine, sporting a new undercut with a lightning bolt design and hair dyed silver, and an idea about how she wanted to spend the rest of her weekend, and Will found it extremely difficult to argue with her.

That was the way it generally went. Will Solace tended be a workaholic. If he wasn’t at class or the lab, he was studying, doing homework, taking care of the plants he crowded around his window, helping out the Bio Society, or doing the million other things he occupied his time with. He was always thankful for his best friends though, they seemed to always somehow know when it was time for him to take a break. Whether it was Cecil showing up with chicken wings at four in the afternoon, or waking up to find Lou Ellen casting spells in the kitchen, both of them had a knack for knowing when it was time to have fun. 

So there he was at a bar that was trying to be something between classy and sporty, with dark wood bar, spindly stools and tables, but playing WWE on a projector towards one certain side of the room while some pop song played. But the generally pleasant vibe was being ruined by the painfully drunk dudes who kept bugging the bar tender for more shots that they obviously didn’t have the stripper-ones to pay with and their girls who kept wandering in looking to use the bathroom without getting any drinks despite the bouncer’s warnings. Cecil, Lou Ellen, and Will had occupied one of the tables and had split a bottle of whiskey between them and had been talking while the shenanigans continued to unfold behind them, talking loud enough to be heard over the subtle roar of people and music and TV.

“I’m telling you dude, I just can’t get a date to this formal coming up,” Cecil groaned as he took a sip of the beer he was using as a chaser. “This is literally the third girl who’s turned me down.”

“Well it would help if you asked out girls you didn’t just see in the SU without any context,” Lou Ellen scoffed as she knocked back another shot.

“Listen, she was my soulmate. She had the cutest fucking dimple you’d ever seen in your whole life and her hair was doing that thing where it was artfully falling down—artfully, I swear to God,” Cecil half-sobbed before he pounded the table. “Why are girls so _cute_ , man? Where do they get off on doing that?”

“I think you are preaching to the wrong choir here with your gay best friend and an ace from outerspace,” Will told him with a pat on Cecil’s shoulder. His face was feeling pleasantly flushed, and he rolled his shoulders back. Will felt good, extraordinarily good. It was just so nice to talk with his friends and not worry about the ten million assignments he had lined up in the future.

“Oh come on, we’re on the same team really. You think girls are cute, but you just don’t want to date them or do any hanky-panky, and Dr. Frank N. Furter is our religion,” Lou Ellen pointed out. 

“Wow, thank you Captain Obvious,” Will said as he stifled his laughter, which didn’t end up working. Instead, all three of them broke out into a chorus of giggles as Will poured himself another shot and held it up. Lou Ellen and Cecil mirrored his actions. “To Cecil’s search for a girl, and to my continued support. If one should ask me, I’ll scoot them his way.”

“Against their own self-interest!” Lou Ellen snickered.

“You guys suck and I love you,” Cecil said with a wide smile.

“Next time don’t wear a Cubs jersey and fluorescent orange socks when you are out to woo a lady!”

“Don’t go dissing the socks!” 

They all laughed and clinked glasses and downed their shots, the alcohol burned pleasantly and smoothly on the way down. Will reached over for his glass of water and found it empty except for half-melted ice-cubes.

“I’m going to go grab some water,” Will announced to them, before getting up. He used extreme caution as he navigated the tables and chairs and drunk people considering he was also slightly tipsy. He ordered his water from the bartender and waited patiently as he leaned against the counter.

The first thing that caught his attention about the guy sitting next to him on a stool was the flash of silver—a skull ring he kept twisting around his long fingers. Long dark curls that were mostly held back by a pony tail, amazing facial structure that made him look like a piece of art, from the bottom of his (chained) combat boots and skinny jeans to the vintage leather jacket on his shoulders.

Will immediately half-swerved, focusing desperately on keeping his gaze forward at the line of liquors mounted on the wall, and not ogling at the dude next to him because _damn_ he was fine—the kind of fine that would have him sobbing on the carpet of Lou Ellen’s dorm at four-in-the-morning while stuffing his face with veggie pizza and watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race later. But for now, it definitely wouldn’t help him to freak out the dude by staring. Besides, everyone knew that hot guys in leather jackets who wore Iron Maiden tee-shirts were generally as straight as boards. No use getting his hopes up.

Will had just managed to get his water from an apologetic bartender, when suddenly he was knocked into by one of the very drunk dudes with only ones in his pocket. He barely kept the liquid from falling into hot-guy-in-the-jacket’s lap.

“Uh, excuse you?” Will asked the lump of muscle that had plowed into him. The guy blinked at Will blurrily for a second, acknowledging for the first time the person who wasn’t the girl half glued to his arm, and he snarled at him.

“What? Why you looking at my girl?” the drunk guy slurred, and Will held up his hands.

“Trust me, I’m very much not interested in girls—uh, your girl, and girls in general yes but—“ Will blurted out over his booze numbed tongue. 

“Excuse me, you fucking faggot?” Drunk-and-Ugly growled, puffing up like an angry rooster.

“ _What the fuck did you just say?_ ”

The words came out of nowhere and half stole the breath from Will’s lungs. Suddenly the hot guy next to him had gotten off the stool. He wasn’t physically big or imposing, he was a head shorter than Will himself and was built slender and wiry, but something about the way he stood tense and ready broadcasted: WRONG PERSON TO FUCK WITH.

“Butt out!” Drunk-and-Ugly warned, and Will noticed the other people at the bar moving away but found himself rooted to his spot.

“What did you just call him?” hot-guy demanded, his jaw working with rage.

“I called him a faggot,” Drunk-and-Ugly repeated with angry glint in his eye.

“You better apologize right now!” Hot-and-Scary growled at him, his voice a combination of deep and gravely that would have been amazingly sexy if not slightly terrifying and if Will hadn’t been a little drunk and horrified he might have been able to sift out what was what.

“Why? You some kind of faggot lover?!”

Drunk-and-Ugly took the first swing, but Hot-and-Scary answered by punching the dude right in the face so hard that the dude dropped like a sack of potatoes, and the next second he was on asshole and kicking the crap out of him.

“How does it feel to get your ass kicked by a faggot you piece of shit!” Hot-and-Scary yelled as he continued to unleash righteous vengeance on the dude, with Drunk-and-Ugly managing to get in a few punches of his own, until Will reached to grab Hot-and-Scary under his arms and pull him away by force as Hot-and-Scary thrashed in his arms. “Let go of me! Let me at him, I’m going to rearrange his face!”

“Woah Nico, calm down!”

A much larger Asian guy helped Will haul Hot-and-Scary, whose name was apparently Nico, away from the unfolding action, as the bouncers tried to deal with the group of very angry drunk friends who kept being egged on by the fact Nico kept yelling things along the line of “ _Fight me bitch_ ” at them. The chaos was controlled by the time the cops rolled in, and by that point a bunch of very disappointed drunk college students were in the process of stumbling home.

Will was interviewed, and told his story to a relatively understanding cop. Eventually Will ended up meeting Nico on the curb after the cops had let him out of the car. Will handed Nico a cup of ice for the black eye he was now sporting (and somehow made look so good), and Nico pressed it against his face.

“Thanks…sorry. I kind of really lost it in there,” Nico said and Will gave him a smile as he sat down on the curb beside him and held out a napkin. “What’s that for?”

“I’m Will Solace, senior bio-major. Your nose is bleeding,” Will informed him. In the lamp light and blue and red flashes, Will definitely caught Nico’s ears redden. 

“Nico di Angelo. Classics and Italian double major,” Nico answered as he took the napkin hesitantly as he sniffed and wiped at his nose which was dripping blood. “Ah, shit. You’re right. I think I broke my fucking nose.”

“Let me see,” Will said, touching Nico’s face. His expression flickered before settling into a guarded façade, as Will inspected his nose, gently probing the side. “You seem to be okay. It was probably just the trauma.”

“I would have been pissed if he had managed it. Bastard had a wimpy punch anyways,” Nico reported, as if this definitely wasn’t Nico di Angelo’s first rodeo. Will directed Nico on the proper way to pinch his nose to stem to bleeding, and held the cup of ice for him as they sat together. Will noticed a pretty African-American girl and the Asian boy speaking to the police, as well as Lou Ellen and Cecil. “It was supposed to be my sister’s night—Hazel, she’s over there. She just totally killed her interview and got her internship. But I just can’t seem to human properly.”

“Well you protected my honor, and you were a total badass. If you were going to get thrown in jail, they probably would have handcuffed you, so I think you’re good and she’ll forgive you.”

“You were pretty cool to. I mean, I lost it, but you pulled me off. Thanks for that.”

“I don’t think we’re even though,” Will told him, as he placed the cup on the ground. He called over a lady who handed him a pen from her purse. “Here, give me your hand.”

Nico held it out, obviously confused. Will quickly scrawled his number on Nico’s palm and then released his grip. Nico stared at the number dumbly for a moment, before comprehension flickered over his features and he blushed. For a guy who had kicked the shit out of another human being about a foot bigger than him, Will was finding him increasingly adorable.

“Will, you’re a free man! Our Uber is here!” Cecil called out to him as Will stood up and brushed off the street-grime from his jeans.

“Call me,” Will told Nico di Angelo with a sunny smile. “I’ll take you out, if you are interested, and I really hope you are.”

“Uh—yeah, that sounds—yeah,” Nico stuttered, offering an almost shy wave as Will walked away and loaded up in a Honda Accord with Lou Ellen and Cecil.

“Please tell me you got his number,” Lou Ellen told him as she shook his arm. Will watched Nico’s sister give Nico a hug as the car pulled away, and he smiled.

“I don’t think I’ll be free next weekend to be your date to the formal Cecil,” Will reported.

“Damn way to leave me hanging, Solace.”


	2. The Fashion Of His Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But for now, it definitely wouldn’t help him to freak out the dude by staring. Besides, everyone knew that hot guys in leather jackets who wore Iron Maiden tee-shirts were generally as straight as boards. No use getting his hopes up." Will hits up a bar on a night out with his best friends, and inadvertently crosses paths with the badass he never knew he needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the long awaited follow up to my Solangelo fic Boys Boys Boys. This fic includes, Solangelo, College AU, bad pop culture references, gas station flirting, and millennial issues a la my own college experience. So if you are interested in those things, i hope you enjoy this!

“Holy shit Nico did you lose a fight with a brick wall?” Percy Jackson asked him as Nico rolled into the café the next day. 

“Thank you Captain Subtly for reminding me, how could I have forgotten that my face is reminiscent of John McClane circa _Die Hard_?” Nico snarked back as he sank down in his seat, dropped his backpack, and opened up his coffee. He took a nice long swig of the cup. 

“Seriously, what happened? Do I need to fight someone?” Percy asked concerned. “Do I need to draft in Reyna and Annabeth?”

“As always I appreciate you willingness to throw down and involve your girlfriend in the ass-kicking, but don’t worry, I took care of the ass-kicking myself.” 

“That’s not cryptic at all,” Percy said suspiciously. Nico gave up dodging the question in Percy’s raised shoulders.

“Some douche at the bar I went to last night was slinging homophobic slurs at this guy, I introduced my foot into his mouth through his ass.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” Percy said with a smile. “Did you at least get the guy you saved’s number?”

Nico squirmed in his seat, and Percy’s green eyes blew out wide. Usually Percy held the Guinness World Record for world’s thickest skull, but somehow when his switch was flipped onto Optimal Annoyance TM he could almost smell Nico’s comfort level like a Labrador Retriever could smell a bag full of dog treats. He grabbed Nico by the jacket and began shaking him.

“Oh my god you totally did! You got a guy’s number, oh my god I need to call Reyna and Jason—!”

“Percy shut the fuck up before I kill you—and why would you tell Reyna and Jason?!”

“Because it’s nice to keep your parents in the loop, especially when their little boy is getting laid.” 

“Jackson I am this close to socking you in the jaw.”

For a minute they sat there together in comfortable silence. Percy smiled into his cup thoughtfully.

“I’m happy for you, man,” Percy said quietly, with the big smile of his that still pulled at Nico’s stomach. 

“Shut up,” Nico said before feeling his own mouth pull up. “Thanks. Just so you know, he’s way more my type than you were.”

“That’s a low blow, bro.”

* * *

“Don’t wear a band tee-shirt on your first date,” Hazel told Nico as she lay on his bed the next Friday. Nico had been looking at his tee-shirts contemplatively when his sister had made her comment.

“It seemed to work okay last time,” Nico told her as he held the apparently offending shirt in his hands.

“Yeah, when you got into a bar brawl. And you don’t even like heavy metal.”

“Like I said, it worked. Also, aesthetics.”

“Hey Edgelord, do you want this boy to be your boyfriend or not?”

“I haven’t even went on a date with him yet, let’s not jump the gun here.”

“Look who’s talking, says the guy who wanted to jump his bones at the bar.”

Nico sighed and buttoned up a slim black shirt and motioned to himself, as Hazel nodded in approval. Okay, yes. He had glimpsed at Will Solace from across the bar, and maybe in his slightly inebriated state had said something about “loving that boy so right that he wouldn’t leave the bed for a week”, but no one could prove anything except maybe the NSA agent who was probably looking at the snapchats that Hazel was sending to their friend Piper. And when Will had actually walked to the bar Nico had clammed up until that asshole had been annoying, so no harm no foul and Nico was pretending it didn’t happen.

“Will you at least let me wear my leather?” Nico asked her, exasperated.

“Of course,” Hazel giggled, and Nico rolled his eyes and reached over to ruffle Hazel’s hair. He pulled on his jacket and stuffed his wallet and phone into his pocket. “We want you to get the second date, after all.”

“Alright, I’m off. I’m meeting him there.”

“Text me to let me know how everything’s turning out! Or if he’s a serial killer and you need me to go Dr. Reid on him.”

“Okay, alright,” Nico said as he reached over to press a kiss to Hazel’s head. “Have a good night and if Frank gets handsy know that I’m watching, always.”

“We’ve been going out for two years—!” 

Nico shut the door and snickered to himself, before walking down the flight of stairs.

The restaurant Nico and Will were meeting at was just off campus, and it was a nice enough night that Nico didn’t mind the walk. However when Nico got there, he found Will sitting outside the restaurant with a sheepish expression as Nico noted the overflow and crowd of people.

“What the hell—“ Nico started as Will gave him an apologetic grin that flashed brightly with the light from the passing cars. 

“Yeah, like, two parties of ten people are trying to get in, and they don’t take reservations,” Will explained as he stood up and he brushed off his jeans and Nico actually took him in fully for the first time. 

Back in the day when Nico was thoroughly uncomfortable with the feelings that male beauty inspired, he had spent his adolescence bubbling away in a cesspool of self-hatred and teenaged angst, stunting any hopes of love from the get go. Nico had also been mourning the loss of both mother and sister, and dealing with so much other hopeless and terrible shit that the idea of dealing and processing his sexuality wasn’t something he could even wrap his head around. Nico had metaphorically attempted to pull the plug, dissociate human beings from the feelings that they inspired in him, so no one would be able to take advantage of those feelings that Nico did want to have. People were awful and always wanted something from him, and Nico didn’t have any part of him that he wanted to give. If he gave himself proper distance, it was easy to deal with those pesky feelings and properly defang them so they had no weight or heat. Nico had dealt with that, grown from that. When he got to college he had finally been able to work on it, to try dating, with little success but at least he thought he had a handle on male beauty. He had at least run a decent gambit.

And so for some reason he had been under the assumption that the heat of his desire for Will Solace on the night of the bar brawl was half due to beer-goggles. However, without the interference of alcoholic beverages Nico was discovering there was absolutely no distance between Nico and the most beautiful boy that he had ever seen in his entire life and somehow Will Solace was hotter sober in his jeans, tee-shirt, and rumpled flannel. There was no room to think around it, no ability for his brain to deconstruct and analyze and plan when the boy in front of him was so close and his eyes were so blue and warmth was radiating from his golden speckled skin and the curl of his hair was making his thoughts all muddled and when he began checking out the way his shirt stretched over his broad shoulders the most eloquent thought that Nico could come up with was: _holy shit I am so fucking gay what the fuck._

“So…uh…what do you want to do?” Nico asked him, rocking back on his heels, thankful that his mind-vomit was not coming out of his mouth.

“I don’t know, I was kind of waiting to think about it until you showed up,” Will said with a shrug. “I figured we could do what we want.”

“I’m getting the feeling that you are rather laid back,” Nico chuckled, though he felt like his mouth was full of rocks.

“It’s all an illusion, I’m actually very uptight,” Will said with a playful wink. _Oh my god_ , Nico thought desperately. _He just winked. At me. As if I’m wink-worthy. He must think I’m wink worthy oh my god._

“Maybe I could help with that—“

_Holy fuck shut the fuck up Nico you are literally the worst_ , the irrational part of his brain said as he physically swallowed and choked on his words.

“—I mean, if you don’t mind, I know a really good pub? There are milkshakes?” Nico croaked. 

“Are there strawberry milkshakes?” Will Solace asked very seriously.

“Yes, definitely.”

“Alright I’m so in,” Will said with a pleased grin before translating albeit a tiny bit embarrassed at his eagerness. And Nico took a deep breath, relieved that he wasn’t the only one with dinner-date-nerves. “I’m a pretty cheap date.”

“Lucky for me then, since I’m paying,” Nico told him as they began to walk.

“You don’t need to do that,” Will tried to argue in return. “I mean, you got a black eye defending my honor.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Nico promised. “Where too?”

* * *

That night they stayed out until it was past the witching hour, and Nico could have sworn there was magic in Will Solace’s hands as they sat on the hood of Will’s beat up car in the parking lot and talked about everything and nothing. Condensation collected in rings on the paint where they left their Styrofoam cups, the sky met the city with a halo of light as its margin, and for just one moment Nico could have sworn that this was what his whole life was leading up to as Will Solace kissed his forehead and wished him goodnight. And the next moment he wanted so much more that it scared him when Will Solace walked away.

Hazel teased him when he couldn’t hide his grin for days when Will Solace texted him and asked about a next time.

* * *

“I’m telling you, Neeks, these textbook costs are killing me, I swear,” Will groaned. “I can’t even properly take you out.”

It was about 2:00 AM in the morning, post-midterms, and Nico had found himself on the phone with Will who had just finished a late night exam at 9:00 and wanted desperately to blow off some steam. Not that Nico minded that. In fact, not that Nico would ever admit it, since their second date Nico had been waiting by his phone eagerly just hoping for another. (To the chagrin of all his friends, who threatened to out him as a complete sap but were only held back on fear of death). So they had walked down the street to the gas station on the corner past the campus and apparently the late-night sleep-deprived hyper-bubbliness was in full force as Will nearly skipped through the gas station with the very accustomed to this bodily-torture Nico who was following behind him.

“Listen, does it look like I care that our third date is taking place at a gas station before we watch a heinous amount on Netflix with our friends being gigantic cockblocks?” Nico asked him seriously as he walked down the aisle.

“You are doing your serious face, I can’t translate. It could mean, a. you are screwing me, b. you are being deadly serious, or c. a combination of the two,” Will told him in return as Nico rolled his eyes. “Oh, you just did that cute eye-roll thing, based on context clues I’m going to guess it’s a.”

“Asshole, you aren’t taking a test anymore,” Nico chuckled as Will leaned down, and Nico shoved him half-heartedly. Will made a show of leaning against the honey-roasted peanuts as if he were wounded. 

“Let’s figure out a way to game the system,” Will said thoughtfully as they walked down the aisle together. Nico’s steps stopped, and yet he tried to keep his swagger pointedly undeterred.

“Oh really? Like how?”

“Uh…who gets benefits?”

“Federal workers? University employees? Married people?”

“Nico,” Will said extremely serious as he grabbed Nico’s hands, a glimmer of humor flashing in his eyes. “Let’s get married.”

Nico laughed aloud suddenly, and Will’s chuckles followed suit as Nico disengaged.

“I thought you agreed with Lou Ellen,” Nico said as he picked up a bag of pretzels before discarding them with chocolate chip cookies. “The whole marriage is an institution created by the patriarchy to control women as financial incentive thing. And I do want to devour the patriarchy whole.” 

“Sure, I hate the patriarchy as much as anyone and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your patriarchy snack. But marriage is about commitment and love, really, when you think about it,” Will pointed out as thumbed the lip of ketchup flavored chips, and Nico moved down the aisle slowly and deliberately. 

“And since when have you met anyone who was married and didn’t hate their lives?” Nico asked him in return. 

“Well, Percy’s mom and second step-dad.”

“Yeah that makes such a valid and strong argument,” Nico snorted.

“Baby,” Will groaned as he pulled Nico close, his fingers curled in his belt loop and Nico felt his heart stutter. “Baby, be sweet to me. I need you to be my sugar daddy, I need the money.”

“I thought you like me naughty,” Nico said with a grin that pulled wickedly against his teeth.

“Oh trust me, I do, but I like you better when you’re sweet to me,” Will chuckled, and Nico could feel him shiver as Nico slipped his hand into his back pocket, as Will reached for what he had obviously spotted on the hook behind him.

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be tonight, if our friends leave us alone,” Nico promised with a chuckle and the way Will licked his lips made Nico’s insides go funny.

“Be my husband then,” Will said with a smile as he offered up the ring pop between them, free of its wrapping. Nico took the cherry lollipop in his mouth, and watched as Will squirmed as he swirled his tongue over it. Nico stuck his finger through the ring and released it with an intentional pop. By that point Will’s face was ruddy.

“Okay if our friends are going to be the witnesses,” Nico said as he admired the ring pop. He suddenly broke out into chuckles, as he allowed Will to curl his arm around his waist. “Where do you want to go?”

“Where?”

“On our honeymoon of course,” Nico laughed as he ducked into the next aisle and out of Will’s grasp.

“Let’s go skiing,” Will told him as he tossed him a bag of potato chips. 

“Salt and vinegar, yum,” Nico chuckled as he admired the bag and threw it in the basket. “And yeah, maybe when you have more than like three dollars in your bank account.”

“Ugh, Neeks, don’t be so cruel to me!” Will bemoaned as he threw in a bag of Chips Ahoy, Cheddar Sour Cream lays, and Funyuns. “I have like, twenty bucks.”

“Don’t call me that and maybe I’ll consider it,” Nico said as he fished a can of Dr. Pepper for Will and an orange San Pellegrino for himself. “Oh, right, don’t you have to pay like sixty bucks or something to get your marriage license?”

“Wait, what?” Will suddenly cried in an act of dismay.

“I guess we’ll have to cancel,” Nico said as he tried his hand at teasing him. 

“Only postpone,” Will said in return suddenly, making Nico blink and the butterflies in his stomach flutter. And then suddenly he blinked, and his face grew redder. “Ah…I mean…”

“I know what you mean,” Nico promised, unable to help feeling his own face grow hot.

They paid for their purchase (and Nico made sure to tip the cashier who looked tired of everything but especially the antics they had just pulled). Will had taken the bag and it swung between them as a silence fell heavily as they managed to get back to Nico’s dorm. Nico didn’t know what to say, and was relieved when Will broke it,

“Did I really just mess up?” Will asked seriously.

“No, you didn’t,” Nico told him honestly as he resisted the urge to grab his phone and disengage.

“Can I…uh…hold your hand?” Will asked, switching the bag between his hand and holding out his arm. And for some reason Nico had the feverish urge to run away, as if somehow this would make things more intimate than flirting could ever do. But he didn’t, and instead took Will’s hand. “This is nice.”

“Are we dating?”

The words came out in a rush of syllables, timed with the curling of Will’s warm fingers with his. And immediately, Nico wanted to bash his head into the wall for being so stupid, for blurting that out during a 2:00 AM run to a gas station with a boy that Nico desperately wanted to be with but was totally jumping the gun—

“I would like to be,” Will told him in return before smiling shyly. “Could I…um…be your boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” Nico said as he tried to swipe his tongue over his teeth, in order to get some moisture. But it was Will’s mouth he was really watching, waiting for those words he desperately wanted to come out, to be there for him. “Could I be yours?”

“Yeah…I would really like that,” Will promised him, his eyes flickering.

There was a moment between breaths, and then they kissed. Nico was pressed back against the wall, and Nico could hear sound the bag was dropped haphazardly, but it didn’t matter because he felt like his heart was going to come out of his chest. Nico wrapped his arms around Will’s neck, as Will pressed them against the wall and moaned into his mouth, and the sound made Nico’s head go all fuzzy and his knees go weak until they were forced to break apart to breathe.

“I’m really glad you did that,” Nico told him as he turned to let the brick cool down his face, his breath still laboring in his lungs, and heat pulling lower than what was appropriate. “Because I wanted to do that since the first time I saw you.”

“Same though, same,” Will promised as he licked his lips.

They looked at each other and then broke out into laughter.

“Hey, idiots, stop making out and get up here with the snacks!” Annabeth Chase called from the second story window.

“Nice work, Will! I’m proud,” Lou Ellen said in return as she waved a handkerchief out the window.

“I’m going to need to see his driver’s license young man!” Jason’s voice came from behind and he could hear Piper and Percy hooting behind him.

“Screw all of you, I’m just going to stay down here and make out with my hot boyfriend!” Nico shouted in return as he yelled.

Will’s grin was enough to make that all worth it.


End file.
